The Cold, Hard Football Facts Quality Stats are simple, easy-to-understand pieces of data that – and this is the most important part – have a direct correlation to winning football games.

These are our "Stats That Matter."

Quality Standings

These are complete NFL standings based solely upon each team's performance against "quality opponents" – that is, against teams with winning records. Strip away the dead-weight detritus of games played against poor and mediocre opponents, and you get a much clearer picture of the true nature of a team. Quality Standings are more important than overall standings because every year there are teams that pad their records by beating up weak opponents. The Quality Wins Quotient tells you which teams have had cakewalk schedules and which teams are truly battle-tested.

This is the offensive counterpart of the Bendability Index. The Scoreability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards by total points scored, yielding Yards Per Point Scored. A team that ranks high on the Scoreability Index has the offense that scores most efficiently, marching off a relatively small number of yards for every point it scores. This effort is more important than total offense and, in many cases, more important than scoring offense. The Scoreability Index is not purely an offensive yardstick. It is, instead, a great barometer of team success. It is a function of many team-wide factors, including general offensive strength, defense and special teams proficiency, turnover differential and Red Zone offense.

This is the first stat that chronicles the phenomenon of the "bend-but-don't-break" defense and provides a measure of defensive efficiency. The Bendability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards allowed by total points allowed, yielding Yards Per Point Allowed. A team that ranks high on the Bendability Index has the defense that opponents must work hardest to score upon. This effort is more important than total defense and, in many cases, more important than scoring defense. The Bendability Index is not purely a defensive yardstick. It is, instead, a great barometer of team success. It is a function of many team-wide factors, including general defensive strength, offense and special teams proficiency, turnover differential and Red Zone defense.

Most "pundits," including the Cold, Hard Football Facts, love to look at passer rating as a way to measure and compare quarterbacks. Passer rating certainly has its merits, and does have a very solid correlation with winning football games. But passing yards per attempt cuts through the complex clutter of the passer rating formula and essentially tells you the same thing in a simpler way ... and perhaps with even more accuracy.

Defensive passer rating is just what it sounds like, measuring pass defenses with the same formula used to calculate quarterback passer ratings. Defensive passer rating gives a much more accurate gauge of defensive ability than the more commonly used system of ranking pass defenses by passing yards allowed. In fact, the NFL system of ranking pass defenses by yards allowed has no correlation to winning football games. Defensive passer rating does.

The Hog Index measures the offensive and defensive lines of each NFL team based upon its ability in three key categories: opening holes for the ground game/defending against it, protecting the quarterback/getting after the quarterback and dominating time of possession. Specifically, we look at each team's average per carry, total sacks allowed plus interceptions thrown, and time of possession. Teams are then ranked based upon their average performance in each of these three categories.

The Big Play Index is a short-lived Quality Stat, introduced at the start of the 2007 season. The Big Play Index was our way of tracking of game-changing plays – who's making them, who's giving them up, and how it all correlates to winning. The Big Plays tracked for each team each week were: turnovers, defensive scores, pass plays of 40+ yards, run plays of 25+ yards, kick returns of 60+ yards, punt returns of 40+ yards, blocked kicks or punts, field goals of 50+ yards.

It's a cool stat, but very hard to automate. We're looking at ways to bring it back.